I think of myself as a conservative Republican, but I’m dismayed by the lack of discourse between the political parties. It is a shame that we are so polarized and dysfunctional as a government that we cannot even discuss real problems without moving to the extremes.

No reasonable person would want to send a child or young adult back to a country they have not lived in since childhood. They may not even speak the language.

Many immigrant children have gone through our schools and are totally acclimated to the United States. They have mostly American friends and would be lost in a foreign country, should they be deported.

What irritates me is politics. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has a bill to change the laws, but the Democratic Senate will not move on it.

However, the president chooses not to enforce the law of the land. Do we postpone a just change in the law to give the president time to get a leg up on the opposition? What do we do with this mess?

We deserve the government we elect.

RICHARD McEWAN

Brewton

Obama throws young black men under bus

The Press-Register heralded President Obama’s policy to allow more than 800,000 illegal aliens to enter the U.S. job market legally. "The rest of the story" was told on the business page, where Gov. Robert Bentley acknowledged Alabama unemployment increased in May, in part due to new graduates entering the job market.

The market is that sensitive.

The president added 800,000 young adults into a job market with unemployment near 25 percent nationwide in the 18-26 age range. This statistic hides unemployment among African-America males at 50 percent.

The president’s action makes one question if he has any respect for young African-American men. He did not kick African-American males to the back of the bus; he threw them under the bus to curry favor from Latinos.

The president is confident he has the African-American vote. He knows young African-American males rarely vote, unlike their grandmothers and mothers, who vote for him. Another president might be called arrogant and insensitive, but not this one.

Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and John Lewis struggled to lift the African-American community out of second-class citizenship by fighting for voting rights, better education and equal opportunity.

How ironic that the first African-American president freely chose to denigrate his heritage and the sacrifices made before him.